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Advisory Committee Members

Robert Groves
Provost
Georgetown University

Robert M. Groves is a social statistician who studies the impact of social cognitive and behavioral influences on the quality of statistical information. His research has focused on the impact of mode of data collection on responses in sample surveys, the social and political influences on survey participation, the use of adaptive research designs to improve the cost and error properties of statistics, and public concerns about privacy affecting attitudes toward statistical agencies.

Prior to joining Georgetown as provost he was director of the US Census Bureau (presidential appointment with Senate confirmation), a position he assumed after being director of the University of Michigan Survey Research Center, professor of sociology, and research professor at the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland.

He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.

Groves has authored or co-authored seven books and scores of peer-reviewed articles. His 1989 book, Survey Errors and Survey Costs, was named one of the 50 most influential books in survey research by the American Association of Public Opinion Research. His book, Nonresponse in Household Interview Surveys, with Mick Couper, received the 2008 AAPOR Book Award. His co-authored book, Survey Nonresponse, received the 2011 AAPOR Book Award.

Groves has a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and master’s degrees in statistics and sociology from the University of Michigan. He also earned his doctorate at Michigan. He and his wife, Cynthia, have two sons — Christopher, in public service at the FAA, and Andrew, in medical school at Washington University, St. Louis.

Dr. Ann Bartuska
Vice President for Land, Water, and Nature
Resources for the Future

Dr. Ann M. Bartuska is Vice President for Land, Water, and Nature at Resources for the Future. Prior to RFF, Dr. Bartuska served as Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics (REE) within the U. S. Department of Agriculture from 2010 to September, 2017. She also held the position of Acting Under Secretary for REE and Acting Chief Scientist for USDA from December, 2016 till her departure from USDA. Prior to that, she was Deputy Chief for Research and Development (R&D), U.S. Forest Service (FS), which she held from 2004 to 2010.

Dr. Bartuska has held positions at North Carolina State University and with The Nature Conservancy as Executive Director of their Invasive Species Initiative. She has held numerous positions with the U.S. Forest Service.

She was elected President of the Ecological Society of America (2003) and has served on the Board of the Council of Science Society Presidents; Dr. Bartuska also is a member of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). She was on the Nicholas School for the Environment, Duke University, Board of Visitors and twice served on the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) Advisory Board of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Bartuska also served on the inaugural Multi-Disciplinary Expert Panel (MEP) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), chartered by UNEP and co-chaired the Science and Technology Roundtable for Sustainability of the National Academy of Sciences.

She is an ecosystem ecologist with degrees from Wilkes College (B.S.), Ohio University (M.S.) and West Virginia University (Ph.D.). Her past research has focused on ecosystem processes in landscapes disturbed by coal mining.

James Collins
Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment
Arizona State University

Dr. James Collins received his B.S. from Manhattan College in 1969 and his Ph.D. from The University of Michigan in 1975. He then moved to Arizona State University where he is currently Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment in the School of Life Sciences. From 1989 to 2002 he was Chairman of the Zoology, then Biology Department. At the National Science Foundation (NSF) Dr. Collins was Director of the Population Biology and Physiological Ecology program from 1985 to 1986. He joined NSF’s senior management in 2005 serving as Assistant Director for Biological Sciences from 2005 to 2009. NSF is the U.S. government’s only agency dedicated to supporting basic research and education in all fields of science and engineering at all levels. Within the Biological Sciences Directorate Collins oversaw a research and education portfolio that spanned molecular and cellular biosciences to global change as well as biological infrastructure. He coordinated collaborations between NSF and other federal agencies through the President’s National Science and Technology Council where he chaired the Biotechnology Subcommittee and co-chaired the Interagency Working Group on Plant Genomics. He was also NSF’s liaison to NIH and served as coordinator across NSF of all environmental research and education.

Dr. Collins's research has centered on the causes of intraspecific variation. Amphibians are model organisms for field and laboratory studies of the ecological and evolutionary forces shaping this variation and its effect on population dynamics. A recent research focus is host-pathogen biology as a driver of population dynamics and even species extinctions. The role of pathogens in the global decline of amphibians is the model system for this research.

The intellectual and institutional factors that have shaped Ecology's development as a science are also a focus of Dr. Collins’s research, as is the emerging research area of ecological ethics. Federal, state, and private institutions have supported his research.

Dr. Collins teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in ecology, evolutionary biology, statistics, introductory biology, evolutionary ecology, and professional values in science. Collins was founding director of ASU’s Undergraduate Biology Enrichment Program, and served as co-director of ASU’s Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology and Minority Access to Research Careers programs.

Honors include the Pettingill Lecture in Natural History at The University of Michigan Biological Station; the Thomas Hall Lecture at Washington University, St. Louis; Distinguished Lecturer in Life Science, Penn State University; President’s Science Symposium Address, Bowdoin College; Phi Beta Kappa Lifto Amundson Lecture at The University of South Dakota; and serving as Kaeser Visiting Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences awarded him its Distinguished Faculty Award. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the Association for Women in Science, and Past President of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). Professor Collins is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the National Ecological Observatory Network, and is on the Board of Delegates for Oxford University Press.

Dr. Collins has served on the editorial board of Ecology and Ecological Monographs as well as Evolution. He is the author of numerous peer reviewed papers and book chapters, co-editor of three special journal issues, and co-author with Dr. Martha Crump of Extinction in Our Times. Global Amphibian Decline (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Steven Gaines
Dean, Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology
University of California at Santa Barbara

Steven Gaines's research focuses on marine ecology and conservation, sustainable fisheries, the design of marine reserves, and the impact of climate change on ocean ecosystems. He has served as director of the UC Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute, and as UCSB Acting Dean of Science and Acting Vice Chancellor for Research. Professor Gaines currently serves as a principal investigator for the Sustainable Fisheries Group, which seeks scalable solutions for the world’s fisheries through partnerships among UCSB researchers, industry leaders, NGO,s and governments.

Dr. Gaines received his Ph.D. in zoology in 1983 from Oregon State University. For the next four years, he was a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist at Stanford University, where he worked on the dispersal of marine larvae by ocean currents and its impact on the ecology and management of marine populations. In 1987, he joined the faculty of Brown University, where he ultimately became an associate professor. In 1994, he left Brown University to join the faculty at UCSB. He became director of the Marine Science Institute at UCSB in 1997 and acting vice chancellor for Research in 2002.

Brett Jenks
President and CEO, Rare

Rare is a global conservation organization known for inspiring change so people and nature thrive. Under Brett’s leadership, Rare has grown more than 2,800 percent since 2000, receiving four straight Fast Company magazine’s Social Capitalist Awards for combining a savvy business model with solutions to pressing social needs. Brett also brought a new approach to the conservation space through Rare's signature model: the Pride campaign. Rare's Pride campaigns train and mentor local conservationists to become agents of change, helping communities establish self-sustaining conservation programs without the need for permanent philanthropy.

Brett has worked in the field of conservation since 1992. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts and holds an M.B.A. with honors from Georgetown University.

Richard J. Lazarus
Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law
Harvard University

Richard Lazarus is the Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, Harvard University, where he teaches environmental law, natural resources Law, Supreme Court advocacy, and torts. Professor Lazarus has represented the United States, state and local governments, and environmental groups in the United States Supreme Court in 40 cases and has presented oral argument in 13 of those cases. His primary areas of legal scholarship are environmental and natural resources law, with particular emphasis on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. He has published two books, The Making of Environmental Law (U. Chicago 2004), and Environmental Law Stories (Aspen Press, co-edited with O. Houck 2005). He was also the principal author of Deep Water - The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling (GPO 2011), which is the Report to the President of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Commission, for which he served as the Executive Director. The Commission was charged with investigating the root causes of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and recommending changes in law and policy to reduce the risk of future spills and to mitigate their impacts. Prior to joining the Harvard law faculty, Professor Lazarus was the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Professor of Law at Georgetown University, where he also founded the Supreme Court Institute. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979 and has a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in economics from the University of Illinois.

The Honorable Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Distinguished University Professor and Adviser in Marine Studies
Oregon State University

Dr. Jane Lubchenco is a marine ecologist and environmental scientist with expertise in oceans, climate change, and interactions between the environment and human well-being. Nominated by President Obama in December 2008 as part of his ‘Science Dream Team,’ she served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 2009-2013. To introduce her to his Senate colleagues for her confirmation hearing, Senator Ron Wyden called Lubchenco ‘the bionic woman of good science.’ Under her leadership, the ~$5B, 12,000 employee-strong NOAA focused on restoring fisheries to sustainability and profitability, restoring oceans and coasts to a healthy state, protecting marine mammals and endangered species, ensuring continuity of the Nation’s weather and environmental satellites, developing a Weather-Ready Nation, promoting climate science and delivering climate information and services to inform understanding and adaptation, and strengthening science and ensuring scientific integrity at NOAA.

After departing from NOAA in February 2013, Dr. Lubchenco was the Haas Distinguished Visitor in Public Service at Stanford University, and in June she returned to Oregon State University where she had previously taught for over 3 decades. She received her B.A. in biology from Colorado College, M.S. in zoology from the University of Washington, and Ph.D. in ecology from Harvard University. Her career as a professor began at Harvard University (1975-1977) and continued at Oregon State University (1977­-2009). She served as president of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a member of the National Science Board for ten years.

One of the “most highly cited” ecologists in the world, eight of her publications are recognized as “Science Citation Classics.” She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Society. She has received numerous awards including a MacArthur “genius” award, 19 honorary doctorates, the Heinz Award for the Environment and was named “2010 Newsmaker of the Year” by the prestigious international scientific journal Nature. She served on the Pew Oceans Commission, the Aspen Institute’s Arctic Commission and the World Bank’s Blue Ribbon Panel for the Global Program on Oceans. As president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and as President of the International Council for Science (ICSU), she proposed the concept of “a social contract for scientists” in which scientists pursue and share knowledge that is relevant to society’s most pressing problems, and do so with transparency, honesty and humility.

Dr. Lubchenco is passionate about promoting the discovery, communication and use of scientific knowledge in policy, management and public understanding. She co-founded a research consortium, PISCO, that studies the near-shore ocean along the coasts of Oregon and California. She co-founded three organizations [The Leopold Leadership Program, the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS), and Climate Central] that enhance communication of scientific knowledge to the public, policy makers, media and industry. At NOAA, she strengthened science and the use of scientific knowledge in policy and management.

Michael Mantell
Attorney
Resources Law Group, LLP

Michael Mantell founded the Resources Law Group to help design and administer initiatives for philanthropic foundations and individuals, landowners, and government agencies that result in significant conservation achievements. He also helped to create the strategically aligned but independent Resources Legacy Fund. Since the late 1990s, he has designed and participated in programs and projects that broadened the leadership and constituency for natural resources protection and achieved extensive conservation outcomes for land, water, and ocean resources and on renewable energy. Previously, as Undersecretary for Resources for the State of California, he oversaw the $2.8 billion budget of the Resources Agency. Prior to that, he was General Counsel for the World Wildlife Fund and a Deputy City Attorney in Los Angeles. Mr. Mantell helped lead the 2010 campaign that prevented a rollback of California’s landmark climate change legislation. In the past decade, he has chaired two campaigns resulting in voters approving $7 billion of investments in water, land, and ocean conservation. Mr. Mantell is author and co-author of several books and articles, the recipient of several national conservation awards, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and on the Governing Council of The Wilderness Society.

William K. Reilly
Senior Advisor to, TPG Capital, LP

William K. Reilly is a Senior Advisor to TPG Capital, LP, an international investment partnership. During his tenure with TPG, he was the Founding Partner of Aqua International Partners (1998-2010) a private equity fund dedicated to investing in companies in the water sector. Mr. Reilly served as the first Payne Visiting Professor at Stanford University (1993-1994), Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1989-1993), president of World Wildlife Fund (1985-1989), president of The Conservation Foundation (1973-1989), director of the Rockefeller Task Force on Land Use and Urban Growth (1972-1973), and a senior staff member of the President's Council on Environmental Quality (1970-1972). He headed the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, and served as one of the seven original Trustees who managed the Presidio National Park in San Francisco.

In May 2010, he was appointed by President Obama to co-chair the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and in late 2012 to the President’s Global Development Council. Mr. Reilly is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of World Wildlife Fund, Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the ClimateWorks Foundation, Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, Co-Chairman of the Bipartisan Policy Center Energy Project, Co-Chairman of the Board of the Global Water Challenge, and a Director of the Packard Foundation. He recently rotated off the boards of directors of ConocoPhillips, DuPont, and the National Geographic Society, and he currently serves on the boards of Royal Caribbean International and Energy Future Holdings, for which he serves as Chairman of the Sustainable Energy Advisory Board. In 2007 Mr. Reilly was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served in the U.S. Army to the rank of Captain, and holds a B.A. degree from Yale, J.D. from Harvard, and M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia University.